Beyond a doubt, France's military leaders seemed unable to provide a spark of leadership that could motivate the French soldiers and turn aside the Germans. And the collapse and disintegration of the 55th, 53rd, and 71st Infantry divisions—usually with little or no enemy contact—opened huge areas to the Germans. The collapse of these divisions did not occur because of the decadence of French society. In combat, soldiers fight as individuals within a unit according to the rhythm established by doctrine and strategy and according to the spirit engendered by leaders. They are not puppets performing intricate tasks in a mechanical or rote fashion; they are human beings surrounded by chaos and smothered by fear. Their success or failure comes not from vast, impersonal forces, but from cohesion, sound doctrine, demanding training, solid leadership, and confidence in their weapons. Many French units lacked these important qualities, and their collapse should not be surprising.
A comparison of the casualties between the two participants suggests a great deal about the campaign. German casualties in the XIXth Panzer Corps during the entire battle from Luxembourg through Dunkirk were 3,845 (6.99 percent) killed (640, or 1.16 percent) or wounded (3,205, or 5.83 percent) out of a strength of about 55,000. Of these casualties, a significant portion came from officers. Out of a total strength of about 1,500 officers, 241 (16.07 percent) were wounded, and 53 (3.53 percent) killed.6 Because of the nature of the fighting, most of the casualties among the officers undoubtedly came from the infantry and armor regiments.
The French suffered a higher rate of casualties. A breakdown of figures for all units is not available, but in 1947 the Service Historique de l'Armée de Terre estimated that the Second Army suffered about 12 percent casualties, with 3–4 percent being killed and 8–9 percent being wounded.7 The losses of the 55th Division were probably significantly higher than the overall losses for the Second Army. On the morning of 16 May, the division could only account for 38 officers and 1,600 men in its four infantry regiments, which had had 293 officers and 11,727 men present for duty on 21 April. The overwhelming majority of these men were missing in action.8
The most important difference between the casualties of France and Germany concerns the loss of key leaders. Of the four French battalions in the area between Donchery and Pont Maugis, none lost its commander. Of the four regiments involved in the fighting at Sedan, none lost its commander. Only one, Lieutenant Colonel Labarthe of the 213th Infantry Regiment, was wounded, but his wound came from German forces’ having broken through French defenses between Chehéry and Chémery, not from his being far forward. An important exception to this occurred at La Horgne. There, the brigade commander participated in the fighting, and the commander of one of the regiments and his successor lost their lives.9
In contrast to the French, the Germans lost a number of their key leaders, including the commanders of the Armor Brigade and the 43rd Assault Engineer Battalion in the 1st Panzer Division. While some of the casualties occurred because of friendly fire, German officers were forward leading their men, and as a consequence suffered higher casualties. French commanders, however, remained in the rear, attempting to manage the battle and rarely moving forward to decisive points in the fighting. A French general would never have been as far forward as the one Lieutenant Verron was taken to see after he was captured.
The Germans also demonstrated an ability to continue fighting despite the loss of key leaders. Instead of permitting units to collapse because of an unfamiliarity with the mission or with what was happening, officers stepped forward and successfully assumed the responsibility of leadership. This success probably came from the German Army's recognition that perfectly organized and manned units exist only up to the first battle. After the losses of the first and subsequent battles, leaders must be replaced, and the unit must continue to function. That difficulties could still emerge, however, is apparent from the poor performance of the 1st Armored Brigade near Chagny after the loss of the brigade commander and other key officers in the 2nd Panzer Regiment.
Both the French and German styles of leadership came from the two armies’ doctrines. While one emphasized the management of men and materiel in methodical battles, the other emphasized rapid decisions and personal influence at decisive points in highly mobile battles. In other circumstances, the French approach of having commanders “on the handle of a fan” may have been appropriate, but in the dynamic battles of 1940, the approach appeared completely out of place.
By the morning of 16 May, the French Army teetered on the edge of collapse, and in subsequent days the Germans won one of the most decisive victories in military history. The shocking collapse of France captured the attention of most of the world's military leaders. That such a powerful nation could be so swiftly defeated seemed almost beyond comprehension, and a flurry of explanations soon generated a curtain of myths that obscured the reality of what had happened in May 1940.
Neither France nor Germany sought to dispel these myths, for both were more comfortable with the myth than with the less-flattering reality. For those in the French Army, admissions of inadequate doctrine, poor leadership, and an ill-conceived strategy (as well as inappropriate training methods and personnel policies) shifted the onus of defeat onto their already over-burdened shoulders. Similarly, for those in the Germany Army, acknowledgements of the important role played by the infantry and of the confusion and difficulties encountered in the campaign served only to deflate the reputation of Germany's armored forces and thereby to encourage potential enemies. As the sweep of events changed directions, the myths assumed a life of their own.
Fifty years after the shattering events of 1940, the bunkers occupied by General Lafontaine, Lieutenant Verron, and others still stand at Sedan. Though overgrown with weeds and occasionally filled with trash, they are the only physical relics—except for the headstones in the cemetery at Noyers—left by the men of the Xth Corps and 55th Division. The myths, however, that grew out of the experience of these men continue to exist today.
Such myths become particularly dangerous when they are used by theorists or military organizations and portrayed as historical fact. If concepts and doctrine are to have any utility, they must be based upon accurate assessments of events as they actually occurred. Otherwise, decisions about strategy, tactics, organizations, and equipment may be as specious or deplorable as General Huntziger's assertion when he said, “I believe that no urgent measures are necessary to reinforce the Sedan sector.”
As the French cavalry learned at La Horgne, heroism and sacrifice in combat cannot always make up for mistakes or negligence that occurred before a battle.
Notes
INTRODUCTION
1. General Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader (New York: Ballantine Books, 1957), p. 84.
2. Congressional Record, 76th Cong., 3d sess., vol. 86, no. 97 (May 16, 1940), pp. 9534–9535.
3. R.H.S. Stolfi, “Equipment for Victory in France in 1940,” History, no. 55 (February 1970), pp. 1–20.
4. Robert A. Doughty, The Seeds of Disaster: The Development of French Army Doctrine, 1919–1939 (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1985), p. 189.
CHAPTER 1
1. B. H. Liddell Hart, The German Generals Talk (New York: Morrow & Co., 1948).
2. See Doughty, Seeds of Disaster, pp. 41–71.
3. Dudley Kirk, “Population and Population Trends in Modern France,” in Modern France: Problems of the Third and Fourth Republics, ed. Edward Mead Earle (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951), p. 317.
4. Procès-verbaux des réunions du conseil supérieure de la guerre (Hereafter P.V., C.S.G.), 17 May 1920, Service historique de l'armée de terre (hereafter S.H.A.T.) carton 50.
5. P.V., C.S.G., 12 October 1927, S.H.A.T. 50 bis.
6. Pétain's comments are included in Général Maurice Gamelin, Servir, vol. 2 (Paris: Plon, 1946), p. 128.
7. Pierre Renouvin and Jacques Willequet, Les relations militaires franco-belges de mars 1936 au 10 mai 1940 (Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche S
cientifique, 1968), passim.
8. Gamelin, Servir 1:84–88. For a fuller discussion of the plans, see: Lieutenant Colonel Henry Dutailly, Les problèmes de l'Armée de Terre française (1935–1939) (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1980), pp. 91–114.
9. G. Q. G., E.-M. Général, 3ème Bureau, No. 0264 3/FT, 26 September 1939, S.H.A.T. 27N155.
10. G. Q. G., E.-M. Général, 3ème Bureau, No. 0559 3/N.E., 24 October 1939, S.H.A.T. 27N155.
11. Pierre Le Goyet, Le mystère Gamelin (Paris: Presses de la Cité, 1975), pp. 281–83.
12. François Bédarida, La Stratégie Secrète de la Drôle de Guerre (Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1979), pp. 149–50, 179; G. Q. G., E.-M. Général, 3ème Bureau, No. 0773 3/N.E., 17 November 1939, S.H.A.T. 27N155.
13. Le Goyet, Gamelin, p. 284; D. W. Alexander, “Repercussions of the Breda Variant,” French Historical Studies 8, no. 3 (1974): 481.
14. G. Q. G., E.-M. Général, 3ème Bureau, No. 0682 3/N.E., 8 November 1939, S.H.A.T. 27N155.
15. Gamelin, Servir 1:82–83; 3:176–77; G. Q. G., E.-M. Général, 3ème Bureau, No. 790 3/Op, 20 March 1940, S.H.A.T. 27N155.
16. G. Q. G., E.-M. Général, 3ème Bureau, No. 1122 3/Op, 16 April 1940, S.H.A.T. 27N155; G. Q. G., E.-M. Général, 3ème Bureau, No. 790 3/Op, 20 March 1940, S.H.A.T. 27N155.
17. Quoted in Pierre Lyet, La Bataille de France (Mai–Juin 1940) (Paris: Payot, 1947), p. 22; Le Goyet, Gamelin, pp. 295–96.
18. “Historique des opérations du G.A. 1 entre 10 Mai et le 1er Juin 1940 par le Général Blanchard” (typescript, n.d.), S.H.A.T. 28N1, pp. 18, 28, 30; Journal des Marches et Opérations du Group d'Armées No. 1, 12 May 1940, S.H.A.T. 28N2.
19. Generaloberst Franz Halder, The Halder Diaries: The Private War Journals of Colonel General Franz Halder (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1976), 29 September 1939, vol. 2, p. 18.
20. Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, vol. 7, “Memorandum and Directives for Conduct of the War in the West,” 9 October 1939, Document L-52, p. 801.
21. Ibid., pp. 804–6.
22. Ibid., p. 809.
23. Ibid., p. 809.
24. Ibid., p. 811.
25. Ibid., pp. 810, 814.
26. “Directive No. 6 for the Conduct of the War,” Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, vol. 6, Doc. C-62, 9 October 1939, pp. 880–81.
27. Halder Diaries 2, 14 October 1939, p. 30.
28. Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, “Dunkirk 1940,” in H. A. Jacobsen and J. Rohwer, eds., Decisive Battles of World War II: The German View, trans. Edward Fitzgerald (New York: G. P. Putnam's, 1965), p. 33.
29. Walter Görlitz, ed., The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Keitel, trans. David Irving (New York: Stein and Day, 1966), pp. 101–2; Helmuth Greiner, “The Campaigns in the West and North,” in Donald S. Detwiler, ed., World War II German Military Studies, Document MS # C-065d, vol. 7 (New York: Garland Publishing, 1979), pp. 10–11.
30. Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, Fall Gelb: Der Kampf um den Deutschen Operationsplan zur Westoffensive 1940 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1957), pp. 25–31.
31. Ibid., pp. 39–40.
32. Ibid., pp. 36–43.
33. Deployment Directive Yellow, 29 October 1939, Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals, vol. 10, Doc. NOKW-2586, p. 812; Jacobsen, Fall Gelb, pp. 25–31.
34. Notes to the War Diary, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, vol. 4, Document 1796-PS, p. 372; Erich von Manstein, Lost Victories, trans. Anthony G. Powell (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1958), pp. 108, 110; Jacobsen, Fall Gelb, p. 53.
35. Directive No. 8 for the Conduct of the War, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, vol. 3, Doc. 440-PS, pp. 397–99.
36. General Franz Halder, “Operational Basis for the First Phase of the French Campaign in 1940,” Document MS # P-151, World War II German Military Studies, vol. 12, pp. 10–13.
37. Manstein, Lost Victories, p. 99.
38. Le Goyet, Gamelin, pp. 286–88.
39. David Irving, Hitler's War, vol. 1 (New York: Viking Press, 1977), pp. 85–86.
40. Manstein, Lost Victories, pp. 103–5.
41. Halder Diaries, 3, 18 February 1940, p. 81.
42. Ulrich Liss, Westfront 1939/40: Erinnerungen des Feindbearbeiters im O.K.H. (Neckargemund: Kurt Vowinckel Verlag, 1959), pp. 106–7.
43. Manstein, Lost Victories, p. 119; Halder, “Operational Basis,” p. 15.
44. For a detailed examination of the development of French doctrine, see: Doughty, Seeds of Disaster, passim.
45. France, M. G., E. M. A., Instruction sur l'emploi tactique des grandes unités (Paris: Berger Levrault, 1937), pp. 68–69; France, M. G., E. M. A., Instruction provisoire sur l'emploi tactique des grandes unités (Paris: Charles Lavauzelle, 1922), p. 61.
46. Instruction (1921), pp. 11–12.
47. Général Narcisse Chauvineau, Une invasion: est-elle encore possible? (Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1939), p. 101.
48. France, E. S. G., Colonel Lemoine, Cours de tactique Générale et d’état-major, Tactique générale (Rambouillet: Pierre Leroy, 1922), pp. 66, 78.
49. Major Robert A. Doughty, “French Antitank Doctrine: The Antidote that Failed,” Military Review, 56, no. 5 (May 1976): 15–19.
50. Germany, Reichswehrministerium, Chef der Heeresleitung, Führung und Gefecht der Verbundenen Waffen, vol. 1, pp. 140–42; Germany, Chef der Heeresleitung, Truppenführung, vol. 1 (Berlin: E. G. Mittler & Sohn, 1933), pp. 145–48, 158–59.
51. Chef der Heeresleitung, Truppenführung 1: 127.
52. General Wilhelm Balck, Entwicklung der Taktik im Weltkriege (2d ed.; Berlin: R. Eisenschmidt, 1922), pp. 352–54; Georg Bruchmüller, Die deutsche Artillerie in den Durschschlachten des Weltkriege (Berlin: E. S. Mittler & Sohn, 1922); Konrad Krafft von Dellmensingen, Die Durchbruch (Hamburg: Hanseatische Verlagsanslatt, 1937); and Captain Timothy T. Lupfer, The Dynamics of Doctrine: The Changes in German Tactical Doctrine during the First World War, Leavenworth Papers No. 4 (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Combat Studies Institute, 1981).
53. Chef der Heeresleitung, Führung und Gefecht 1: 53–54; Truppenführung 1: 146–48.
54. Dellmensingen, Der Durchbruch, p. 405.
55. Chef der Heeresleitung, Truppenführung (1933) 1: 1, 121–22, 127, 142–43.
CHAPTER 2
1. Gruppe von Kleist, No. 217/40, 21-3-1940, Befehl für den Durchbruch bis zur Maas, p. 3, T314/615/193.
2. Hans von Dach, “Panzer durchbrechen eine Armeestellung,” Schweizer Soldat 47, no. 2 (1972): 58. Cited in Major Florian K. Rothbrust, “The Cut of the Scythe” (Master's thesis, Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kans., 1988), p. 51.
3. Liddell Hart, German Generals Talk, p. 125.
4. XIX. A.K., No. 83/40, n.d., Studie für Korpsbefehl Nr. 1 für den Fall “Gelb,” Annex No. 1, T314/615/903; XIX. A.K., No. 0812/40, 9-4-1940, p. 2, T314/615/232.
5. For example, see: Panzergruppe von Kleist, No. 1695/40, 10 April 1940, T314/615/779.
6. Der Kommandierende General, Der Gruppe von Kleist, 11 May 1940, T314/615/1030.
7. 10 Panzer Division, Ia Op. Nr. 1, 9 May 1940, Divisionsbefehl für den Angriff, pp. 1–2, 7, 10, T314/615/1372.
8. Gruppe von Kleist, Ia Nr. 253/40, Ansatz des XIX. A.K., 18.4.40, T314/667/615.
9. I Mot. A.K., No. 330/40, 31-3-1940, Studie (Planubung) für Korpsbefehl zum planmassigen Angriff über die Maas im Abschnitt Sedan, T314/615/978.
10. Guderian, Panzer Leader, p. 70.
11. Halder Diaries 3: 125.
12. Bundesarchiv-militärarchiv (hereafter BA-MA), RH 27-1/4, 1 Panzer Division, Kriegstagebuch Nr. 3, 9.5.1940–2.6.1940 (hereafter 1 Pz. Div., K.T.B.), p. 5.
13. Halder Diaries 3, 18 January 1940, pp. 30–31.
14. Ibid., 30 April 1940, p. 184; 4 May 1940, p. 189; 7 May 1940, p. 193; 9 May 1940, p. 196.
15. Keitel, Supreme Command of the Armed Forces, 9 May 1940, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, vol. 6, Doc. C-72,
p. 905.
16. Oberkommando des Heeres, Kriegstagebuch des XIX. A.K. vom 14–29.5.1940 (hereafter XIX. A.K., K.T.B.), 9.5.1940, p. 2, T314/612/164.
17. Major von Kielmansegg, “Scharnier Sedan,” Die Wehrmacht 5, no. 11 (21 May 1941): 11.
18. BA-MA, RH 27-1/14, 1 Panzer Division-Ia, Anl. d z.K.T.B. Nr. 3, May–June 1940 (hereafter 1 Pz. Div., Anl. d z.K.T.B.), Kraftradschützen Battalion 1, p. 174.
19. The actual route used by the 1st Panzer Division across Luxembourg was Wallendorf, Diekirch, Ettelbrück, Niederfaulen, Merzig, Grosbous, Grevels, and Martelange. In Belgium, the division moved through Bodange, Witry, south of Neufchâteau, Bertrix, Fays-les-Veneurs, Bellevaux, and Bouillon. In France, the division crossed the Meuse River at Sedan, moved south to Chémery, and turned west toward Vendresse.
20. Roger Bruge, Histoire de la Ligne Maginot, vol. 1, Faites sauter la Ligne Maginot (Paris: Fayard, 1973), pp. 147–60.
21. Halder Diaries 3, 26 February 1940, p. 95.
22. Rothbrust, “Cut of the Scythe,” pp. 83–84.
23. Commandement de l'Armée Belge, G. Q. G., 1ère Section, No. 41/34, 12 February 1940. Reproduced in Belgique, Ministère de la Défense Nationale, E.-M. Général—Force Terrestre, Commandant Georges Hautecler, Le Combat de Chabrehez, 10 mai 1940 (Brussels: Imprimerie des F.B.A., 1957), p. 69.
24. Commandement de l'Armée Belge, G. Q. G., 1ère Section, No. 41/34, 12 February 1940.
25. Belgique, Ministère de la Défense Nationale, E.-M. Général-Force Terrestre, Commandant Georges Hautecler, Le Combat de Bodange, 10 Mai 1940 (Brussels: Imprimerie des F.B.A., 1957), pp. 9, 11–12.
26. Ibid., pp. 13–14.
27. Ibid., pp. 16–17.
28. Ibid., p. 32.
29. Ibid., pp. 19–24.
30. Major von Kielmansegg, “Scharnier Sedan,” Die Wehrmacht 5, no. 12 (4 June 1941): 11.
31. 1 Pz. Div., Anl. d z.K.T.B., p. 201; General Hermann Balck, Ordnung im Chaos: Erinnerungen 1893–1948 (2nd ed.; Osnabrück: Biblio Verlag, 1981), p. 268.
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